Office for National Statistics ignores true value of our fire & rescue services

Yesterday's report, “Activities, spending and productivity in the Fire and Rescue Services since 2009”, from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), clearly shows how distorted thinking is undermining our fire & rescue services.

They claim to be independent of politics, but the claim looks somewhat suspect when the report suggests that cuts have improved productivity. They also claim to be the “recognised national statistical institute of the UK”. Well perhaps they are competent when it comes to business statistics, but when it comes to the fire & rescue service they clearly don’t have a clue.

They apply a simplistic business test of looking at inputs (cost of provision) and outputs (quantity produced), which they perceive for fire & rescue to be operational and prevention activity. They then crudely claim, because activity cuts are not as bad as staff cuts, that productivity has improved.

Home Office figures

The fundamental schoolboy error in this approach is that fire & rescue is not a business, but a form of insurance that both reduces mishaps and disasters, and minimises their effects when they do occur. If they properly assessed outputs, they would assess the financial benefit of lives not being lost and property not being destroyed as a result of FRS activity. Sadly, something this national statistical institute appears incapable of doing.

Now it may be difficult, but proper research could identify the value of lives and property saved at incidents by the FRS. Identifying the value of lives and property saved by prevention activity, i.e. losses avoided because incidents were avoided, may be more challenging, but a “recognised national statistical institute” ought to be able to estimate this. Yet they have not even tried to do so.

The real value of the service is what is saved and prevented, not how many incidents or inspections are carried out. I have no doubt that if these fundamental outputs were properly calculated, then the service would be shown to be very productive and very good value.

Of course, that would also show that cuts to the service are counterproductive, with the cost of the consequences being much greater than the actual saving on service provision. The ONS may consider themselves to be non-political, but their inept assessment is helping austerity politicians to falsely claim damaging cuts as productivity improvements.

If the ONS want their statistics on fire & rescue to be taken seriously, then they need to properly value the full benefit that fire and rescue services contribute to public safety and the economy.     

No wonder things go wrong when WSCC don't care about experience for vital top jobs

Following yesterday's disturbing news, I now learn that the Chief Fire Officer's job has been advertised with an advert that includes this ludicrous sentence:

"Fire service experience would be helpful, it is not essential for this leadership role." 

The idea, so often expounded by management 'experts' and consultants, that managers do not need to know the organisation or business they are managing in detail, is fundamentally flawed. You only have to look at the civil service and the numerous failed Government projects to understand why that philosophy is so flawed. 

Local government is not much better, with senior managers flitting from one section to another after yet another reorganisation. That often leaves one crisis behind, as they create another in the new post. There are also many businesses that have failed after someone is put in charge who has no experience of the specific challenges and requirements of that business.

I grew up in a family business and had other relatives running successful businesses, so learnt about the challenges from an early age. Each of them knew exactly how every part of those businesses worked and were able to carry out any function in that business. That is why they prospered whilst others failed.

Several years ago the fire service experimented with an accelerated promotion scheme where, after a special course, a person could skip several ranks. It was an unmitigated disaster and was dropped. Why, because many of those officers missed out on vital sharp end experience and that undermined their ability to make the right decisions, especially under pressure.  

West Sussex County Council will no doubt say that Chief Fire Officers don't often attend incidents, but when they do, or when they attend the inter-agency Strategic Co-ordinating Group for major incidents, it is vital that they fully understand the consequences of their decisions. There is no better way of understanding the hazards and challenges facing firefighters you are directing, than having been in that situation yourself. That experience also makes your day to day decisions on procedures, resources, staffing, training etc properly informed. 

There are enough challenges in running a fire & rescue service 

without adding the challenge of having no fire service experience

To compound the Council's stupidity, I understand they are using a private consulting company to manage the recruitment process, and they haven't advertised the job throughout the fire & rescue service. You really have to wonder how much more money West Sussex County Council will waste on consultants, especially when consultants have been involved in so many of the Council's failures.

Unsurprisingly, this appears to have the fingerprints of Louise Goldsmith and Nathan Elvery all over it. No consultation, no scrutiny, just do what they want and to hell with the consequences. If, by some chance it is not their doing, then they must surely get the advert changed and ensure the job is advertised widely in other fire & rescue services.

In a service where morale is already low, this is just another 
kick in the teeth for loyal and courageous firefighters

I hope sensible Councillors, who are genuinely concerned about public safety, will make it clear that they want a proper, experienced Chief Fire Officer. I see that County Councillor Michael Jones has already made that clear and I trust many more will follow his common sense approach.

If a business fails livelihoods are lost, but if a Chief Fire Officer fails lives are lost

More bad news for West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service, as County Council makes changes behind closed doors

It seems that Chief Fire Officer Gavin Watts is to retire early, after just 29 years’ service, and Nicola Bulbeck’s post of Executive Director of Communities and Public Protection seems to have vanished from a new structure dreamt up by one of “Private Eye’s” favourites, West Sussex County Council Chief Executive Nathan Elvery. 

From "Inside Croydon" earlier this year

It is particularly surprising, because it was Nathan Elvery who brought Nicola Bulbeck in to the Council after the dodgy deal involving Sean Ruth was exposed.

The deal that would have allowed Sean Ruth to give up being Chief Fire Officer but continue as Executive Director Communities and Public Protection on the same salary. A deal that was costly, as it meant two highly paid posts were needed to replace one. Despite Sean Ruth deciding, or being told to walk away, Nathan Elvery went ahead with the extra post at an additional cost of around £180,000 a year.

So, what part has Council Leader Louise Goldsmith played? Well we know that the County Council told the Information Commissioner that Councillors were not involved in the dodgy deal and that there were no records of who came up with the deal, who approved it or why the decision was taken. However, as Nathan Elvery was the only council officer senior to Sean Ruth, he must be a strong suspect.

Louise Goldsmith & Sean Ruth

Now, if Council Leader Louise Goldsmith and Cabinet Members were really not involved, then why is it that they are refusing to investigate to see if the decision breached regulations or standing orders? Even after a Judge led tribunal was highly critical of the County Council’s “surprisingly poor record keeping practice”, they refused to review the adequacy of those regulations and standards.

Coming after their shocking admissions of failure regarding Children’s Services, it is difficult to have any confidence in changes orchestrated by Nathan Elvery and approved by Louise Goldsmith. Especially when they were responsible for earlier changes that they now seem to be undoing!

BBC News

We don’t know why Gavin Watts is leaving now and we may never know the real reason, but it does raise worrying questions, including:

• Is it anything to do with inadequate funding, or the failure of Cabinet Member Debbie Kennard to get answers about unfair Government funding?

• Is it to do with the report of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services, which is due soon? I could quite understand that he would not want to be the fall guy for failings that result from his predecessor’s decisions and the failings of local and national politicians.

• Is it to do with the imposition of the new management structure and the loss of wider public protection responsibilities?

• Is it because the County Council has diverted money, which should be going to fire & rescue, to prop up other services?

• Is it because fire & rescue is going to face even bigger cuts to fund the measures needed to fix the problems in Children’s Services?

• Did the Chief Executive pressure the Chief Fire Officer to leave?

Or might it be all of those things?

As for Nicola Bulbeck’s post vanishing, it seems to be confirmation of what campaigners said at the time, that it was an unnecessary post and a waste of money. As for Nicola herself, there is no news. If she has in fact been purged, I assume it will once again cost taxpayers a lot of money. 

"The Times" 14 June 2018

Less Safe & Weaker Communities

We were told that fire & rescue, community development and regulatory services were brought together "to help build safer and stronger communities”. Yet Mr Elvery is now removing responsibility for other public protection departments, such as Trading Standards and the Resilience & Emergencies Team, from the Chief Fire Officer. 

Is he really trying to build less safe and weaker communities, or were we lied to before?

Public protection is strangely being added to the Director of Environment's already significant responsibilities, and the new Chief Fire Officer is going to be required to report direct to the Chief Executive. 

Or is something else being plotted? Perhaps fire & rescue is being separated from other WSCC departments to allow for more than just fire control to be taken over by "inadequate" Surrey County Council?

None of these changes will improve the safety of West Sussex residents

and continuing secrecy and lack of scrutiny is an insult to residents 

A worrying silence and vanishing performance data

Funding

Last December, the County Council debated a resolution asking Debbie Kennard, the Cabinet Member for Safer, Stronger Communities, to write to the Government about the unequal funding West Sussex received for the fire & rescue service. The resolution was passed with just six Councillors, including Debbie Kennard, voting against.

Yet five months later all we have is a deathly silence. When was the letter sent? What was the Minister's response? Or, did she ignore the democratic decision of the County Council, and not bother to write to the Government on their wholly inadequate funding for West Sussex?

The public, firefighters and her fellow Councillors deserve answers, and quickly.

Control Centre

At the beginning of this year, despite warnings, the Cabinet Member approved moves to transfer call taking, mobilising, and management of resources and incidents for West Sussex emergencies from the Sussex Control Centre to Surrey Fire & Rescue Service's Control Centre.

Surrey Fire & Rescue Service is failing to properly protect Surrey residents, with fire stations and their control room not properly staffed. Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) rated Surrey as inadequate in their inspection report last year and, among their specific concerns, was inadequate staffing in Surrey's control room. 

'SurreyLive' 9 January 2019

Concerns about the transfer were raised at the County Council's Environment, Communities and Fire Select Committee meeting, but were dismissed with sometimes misleading claims. For example, it was suggested that the reason Surrey take twice as long as the Sussex control to mobilise resources to emergencies was that Surrey challenge callers and Sussex don’t. Councillors accepted that answer, but the truth is that both controls challenge callers when necessary.

Assurances were given about standards and adequate staffing, but wishful thinking is no guarantee. So, it is worrying that no information on standards and staffing have been made public, and disturbing that the agenda for last week's Select Committee meeting did not include an update on this fundamentally important change. 

One of the concerns raised was about the risks of transferring a vast amount of data from the Sussex control to the Surrey control. The meeting was assured that Capita, the IT provider, were on top of it. Unfortunately, similar assurances were given about the transfer of pension management from Capita to Hampshire County Council. Yet Capita’s failings resulted in hundreds of retired firefighters receiving incorrect tax codes that meant they would have to pay additional tax.

This failure resulted in a massive amount of pensioner and HMRC time, additional cost for postage and paperwork, and some pensioners had less money in their last payment, as too much tax was deducted. I was also affected and spent nearly an hour on phone calls to HMRC, received three unnecessary letters, and a reduced payment as a result of Capita's failure. 

The Capita pensions failure cost time and money, but any
mistakes with transfer of fire & rescue operational data could cost lives

Missing performance data

Sometime ago, after pressure from Councillors, performance data for fire & rescue was added to the West Sussex Performance Dashboard. That helped the service and the Council live up to their claim to be open and accountable. However, all that data, with the exception of first fire engine response time, has now disappeared from the website.

It is especially worrying that much of the data that has vanished showed some of the worst performance. That smacks of secrecy and avoiding accountability. They will no doubt say that the information can be found in the quarterly operational performance report, but that lacks sufficient detail to allow long term comparison and proper scrutiny.

The performance data needs to be restored to the Performance Dashboard as a priority

Campaigners & firefighters vindicated

When serious cuts to fire & rescue were being discussed by West Sussex County Council in 2010 and 2014, firefighters and campaigners warned that response times would increase and that response targets would be missed more frequently. 

Former Cabinet Member David Barling and Chief Fire Officer Sean Ruth claimed the changes were improvements and dismissed concerns as 'disinformation' and 'scaremongering'. However, a look at the latest quarterly report clearly vindicates firefighters and campaigners. Not only do figures prove their concerns were well founded, but the service now directly link failed response times to the cuts:

On the 13.5% failure rate for first fire engine arrival they say:

“Long travel distances have increased as a reason for failure, 

as we have four less operational fire stations in West Sussex.”

On the 19.4% failure rate for second fire engine arrival they say:

“Performance on the second pump is weaker than the first due to recent changes within WSFRS. This includes the removal of the second fire engine from three stations and the full closure of another three stations*. This means it is much harder to achieve a two pump attendance target at six stations”

(* In fact four fire stations are no longer operational and more than six stations are affected)

Those Conservative County Councillors who blindly support Cabinet Members

and Chief Officers should remember the advice of trading standards:

“If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”

Worrying excuses

The quarterly report also trots out another well worn and misleading excuse for failing performance. At night and at the weekend, three quarters of West Sussex fire engines are crewed by On-call Firefighters, yet their availability continues to decrease. West Sussex County Council try to duck their responsibility by claiming it is an "on-going issue nationally".

Whilst it is true that a national failure to ensure on-call firefighters are properly rewarded has not helped recruitment and retention, it does not explain why overall availability in some fire & rescue services is well over 90%, yet West Sussex can't manage 57%.

The excuse gets weaker when you see that some On-call crewed fire stations in West Sussex struggle to achieve 10% availability, when others achieve close to 100% availability.

West Sussex County Council used to have a target of 88% availability but then, without consultation, they cut that target to just 75%. A shameless attempt to make inadequate performance look better. This performance indicator is one of the ones that has disappeared from the Council’s Open Performance website and perhaps the fact that it has fallen to 56.9% explains why it was removed.

It is time that West Sussex County Council stopped making excuses and acknowledged that their cuts have significantly contributed to this failed performance.

The reduction in On-call fire engine availability by over 30% began in 2011

&

West Sussex County Council’s cuts to the fire & rescue service began in 2011